1:5 For this reason 1 the wicked cannot withstand 2 judgment, 3
nor can sinners join the assembly of the godly. 4
33:17 A horse disappoints those who trust in it for victory; 5
despite its great strength, it cannot deliver.
38:13 But I am like a deaf man – I hear nothing;
I am like a mute who cannot speak. 6
42:3 I cannot eat, I weep day and night; 7
all day long they say to me, 8 “Where is your God?”
64:6 They devise 9 unjust schemes;
they disguise 10 a well-conceived plot. 11
Man’s inner thoughts cannot be discovered. 12
71:15 I will tell about your justice,
and all day long proclaim your salvation, 13
though I cannot fathom its full extent. 14
96:10 Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!
The world is established, it cannot be moved.
He judges the nations fairly.”
129:7 which cannot fill the reaper’s hand,
or the lap of the one who gathers the grain!
1 tn Or “Therefore.”
2 tn Heb “arise in,” but the verb is used metonymically here in the sense of “stand”; “endure,” as in 1 Sam 13:14 and Job 8:15. The negated Hebrew imperfect verbal form is here taken as indicating incapability or lack of potential, though one could understand the verb form as indicating what is typical (“do not withstand”) or what will happen (“will not withstand”).
3 tn Heb “the judgment.” The article indicates a judgment that is definite in the mind of the speaker. In the immediate context this probably does not refer to the “final judgment” described in later biblical revelation, but to a temporal/historical judgment which the author anticipates. Periodically during the OT period, God would come in judgment, removing the wicked from the scene, while preserving a godly remnant (see Gen 6-9; Ps 37; Hab 3).
4 tn Heb “and sinners in the assembly (or “circle”) of [the] godly.” The negative particle and verb from the preceding line are assumed by ellipsis here (“will not arise/stand”).
sn The assembly of the godly is insulated from divine judgment (Ps 37:12-17, 28-29).
5 tn Heb “a lie [is] the horse for victory.”
6 sn I am like a deaf man…like a mute. The psalmist is like a deaf mute; he is incapable of defending himself and is vulnerable to his enemies’ deception (see v. 14).
7 tn Heb “My tears have become my food day and night.”
8 tn Heb “when [they] say to me all the day.” The suffixed third masculine plural pronoun may have been accidentally omitted from the infinitive בֶּאֱמֹר (be’ÿmor, “when [they] say”). Note the term בְּאָמְרָם (bÿ’omram, “when they say”) in v. 10.
9 tn Heb “search out, examine,” which here means (by metonymy) “devise.”
10 tc The MT has תַּמְנוּ (tamnu, “we are finished”), a Qal perfect first common plural form from the verbal root תָּמַם (tamam). Some understand this as the beginning of a quotation of the enemies’ words and translate, “we have completed,” but the Hiphil would seem to be required in this case. The present translation follows many medieval Hebrew
11 tn Heb “a searched-out search,” which is understood as referring here to a thoroughly planned plot to destroy the psalmist.
12 tn Heb “and the inner part of man, and a heart [is] deep.” The point seems to be that a man’s inner thoughts are incapable of being discovered. No one is a mind reader! Consequently the psalmist is vulnerable to his enemies’ well-disguised plots.
13 tn Heb “my mouth declares your vindication, all the day your deliverance.”
14 tn Heb “though I do not know [the] numbers,” that is, the tally of God’s just and saving acts. HALOT 768 s.v. סְפֹרוֹת understands the plural noun to mean “the art of writing.”